Subgroup Targets

So much of our focus in education is the results on our standardized tests. Each year we have targets to hit for each significant subgroup.

At our first staff meeting the principal announces a series of great accomplishments and then tells us the four groups that came up a little short. They were the low-socioeconomic status group in English, low-socioeconomic status in math, the English learners in English, and the White kids in math.

That got quite a buzz around the room as none of us were expecting to hear that our white students were missing the targets.

There are some times in life I think comments and I keep them to myself, and there are other times I think comments and I go ahead and say them aloud. (I think the latter occurs more often.)

I was sitting in the front row and I turned around and said to the staff as a whole, “I guess we can start helping the white kids again.”